L98IROCZ89

Normally, if your engine isnt running right, you can tell just by listening to it. Well, considering I have a huge exhaust leak coming out of the blown header gasket, I cannot hear whether the engine is running well or not.

My car smokes @ WOT now, and I always figured that was because my rings and seals were shot. Now I am starting to realize that it is possible that having a 160 degree stat and having the fuel pressure up high can eat the spark plugs. It may be smoking due to a miss! If that is the case, I can blow my engine fairly easily.

How can I tell.... I know people are going to say, take the plugs out and look at them. I am trying to avoid that, becuase if I am going to take them out, I might as well just change them, problem solved. Don't get me wrong, my car can probably use a new set of plugs and a new O2 sensor... the plugs were changed last July. Any suggestions/ideas/comments?

Viprklr

iTrader: (5)

Do you feel a miss?
What color smoke?
How does it smell? Have someone behind you for this

dacuma

well I can tell you one way you can tell that you have a fouled plug, you car will be kinda of loud and sound like it has a cam in it, and you will have loss alot of power. I mean a real noticeable amount, and your car will be idling really rough too. Yeah thats what happened to me, it sucked pretty bad too, cause everyone was trying to race me too, I was going nowhere fast

dacuma

oh by the way, my vavle seals were linking too, like when I start up my car white smoke would blow out the pipe for a sec, and thats what was helping foul out the plug

L98IROCZ89

It blows out thick, white smoke. I know when it is smoking becuase I smell the smell of burnt oil coming out of the engine bay, because the smoke comes out of the blown header gasket as well as the tailpipes... (makes my engine bay kinda dirty too, so much for that shine on the strut tower bar).

It lets out a lot of smoke though... when I smell the smell of burnt oil, I look in my rear view and feel as if I am the car from Spy Hunter... with the smoke screen from the weapons van!

The car also smoke a little on start up... white smoke as well. I know this becuase I have a remote starter and can stand behind the car as it starts up. On a similar note, the car seems to idle fine. Seems to idle nice and smooth at 750 with no problems.

I don't know if I feel a miss (power loss) or not. It seems to pick up nice and strong, especially around the L98 power band of 3k. So what the hell am I complaining about?

Well, the combination of the smoking, plus the fact that it does feel very sluggish sometimes. Sometimes I'll step on the gas and it feels as if the car has 4 people in it and it needs to go to Jenny Craig to get on a weight loss programs. I don't believe it ever felt like this before. One problem with cars is that sometimes problems seems to exist in your head sometimes. I'm not sure though.

So I just gave you all further info which I hope helps. Any other suggestions/comments/ideas would be great.

dacuma

well you never stated does it keep on smoking or not, cause if it keeps smoking then it sounds like you blew a head gasket, a way to tell is to check your coolet, and see if your running out at a fast rate.

L98IROCZ89

I have checked the coolant level and it is/has been fine. It does not continue to smoke. It blow out one HUGE puff of smoke for about 1 second.... but come to think of it.... maybe it does continue to smoke. See the thing is, when I smell that smell of burning oil and I know I'm smoking, I let off the throttle. Plus, I know that full throttle is no good for it becuase I know it will smoke, so I rarely do it. The point is, I do not know if it would continue to smoke or not if I continued to stay at WOT. My guess is, if I were to do a WOT run at the track, it would smoke the entire way down (but that is just a guess).

Having that said, the coolant level is fine though.

Hmmm.....?

88 WS6 TransAm GTA

iTrader: (1)

Check your valve cover gaskets. They could be shot, and spewing oil onto the manifolds.

L98IROCZ89

Do you mean the valve cover gaskets or the head gasket???

Swapmaster

Easy way to find a miss is to pull the plug wires off the cap one at
a time while the car is running. When you pull a wire on a cylinder
that is working the rpm's will drop because you just created a
miss. When you pull a wire on a bad cylinder the rpm's will not
drop because that cylinder is already missing.

Re-think, Check the PVC valve and see if it rattles when you shake
it. Could be stuck and sucking oil into the intake

Also the 160 thermostat is a bad idea if the prom in the computer
is not reprogramed for it. The computer will think the engine has
not warmed up yet and is probably never going to closed loop and
running the normal "rich" mixture that it is supposed to on a cold
engine.

Swapmaster

Another point. Fix the header leak. It can be detected by the
knock sensor and the sensor will pull back the timing causing
a huge loss in power.

zroc

just to add... do a compression test or better yet a cylinder leakage test... and make sure you put the plugs in order and let us know what they look like...

zroc

L98IROCZ89

All excellent points, I will try the things stated. Pulling the wires off is a great idea... and wouldn't that be nice if it was the PVC valve

The computer is re=programmed for the 160 stat, because I have the Hypertech Thermomaster chip which calls for a 160. However, I still believe that the 160 stat is a bad idea.